


we were a paradise

by littletrenchcoatangel



Series: September Challenge 2017 [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Chuck Hansen Lives, Chuck Lives, Everybody Lives, F/M, Gen, M/M, Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Post-Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Wingman Yancy, Yancy Becket Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-24 00:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12001392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littletrenchcoatangel/pseuds/littletrenchcoatangel
Summary: (or: yancy is the ultimate wingman)"I think you should tell him how you feel," Yancy says."Tell him how I feel?" Raleigh echoes. "Tell who?"Yancy nods at the table a few behind theirs, where Herc and Chuck are arguing over whether it's polite to let the dog eat at the table."Herc?" Raleigh asks stupidly. "I don't feel anything for Herc."Yancy rolls his eyes, saying nothing. God help his moron of a brother.





	we were a paradise

**Author's Note:**

> these just keep getting longer and longer fuck sorry
> 
> title from caitlyn siehl's "achilles to patroclus" (kill me)
> 
> as usual, unbeta'd, so any errors are my own and i would like it very much if u pointed out any u see, thanks <3

********"I think you should tell him how you feel," Yancy says one day, when they're sitting down in the mess after a long day of practicing in the kwoon.

"Tell him how I feel?" Raleigh echoes, a fork full of mashed potatoes halting in its path towards his mouth. "Tell who?"

Yancy laughs, stealing a piece of broccoli from Raleigh's tray and shoving it into his mouth. Wordlessly, he nods at the table a few behind theirs, where Herc and Chuck appear to be arguing over whether it's polite to let the dog eat at the table.

"Herc?" Raleigh asks stupidly, once he's turned around to see what Yancy is talking about. "I don't feel anything for Herc," he says, turning back. "Just respect."

Yancy rolls his eyes, saying nothing, and gets to his feet.

"You can't hide anything from me, kid," he reminds him, before walking over to put his tray away.

On his way out, he stops back at their table and rests a hand on Raleigh's shoulder.

"And considering your job description," he adds. "You shouldn't hide it from him, either."

* * *

 

The double event happens with significant complications, but everybody makes it out alive.

Yancy and Raleigh are on standby, suited up but not dropped, because Stacker isn't certain they'll need another jaeger in the field (and because they haven't piloted together outside of sims since Knifehead, and their combined PTSD is an ongoing issue). Yancy takes it in stride - despite coming back to the program, he's not all that keen on reliving his five-year-old nightmares - but Raleigh twitches anxiously at his side in LOCCENT.

Tendo looks about four seconds from ripping Raleigh apart himself when Yancy reaches a hand out to grab Raleigh's wrist.

"Raleigh," he says. "He'll be fine."

"I know," Raleigh answers immediately, completely unaware of the confession he's just made. "I just-"

"Three of the best teams are out there right now. And we're ready to go if they need us. They'll be fine."

Right after he says this, Crimson goes under and Cherno calls for backup. Striker moves in, and manages to distract the Kaiju long enough for Cherno to save the Wei's from drowning. They make it back to the Miracle Mile for evac, but then their only hope at closing the breach is left out there alone.

Raleigh doesn't seem comforted by the fact that five of his colleagues have escaped death - instead, he starts biting at his lip, a nervous tick Yancy hasn't seen since before their first drop.

"Rals," he says. "It's-"

He doesn't get to finish, because an EMP blast fries everything, and their connection with Striker and the others is lost.

"Yancy," Raleigh says quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

* * *

 

 

Raleigh is the only one that remembers Gipsy's nuclear core in the following crisis, and it's thanks to him and his quick thinking that Striker and the Hansen's make it back alive at all.

The boys come in smiling so hard their cheeks hurt, and it feels like everyone inside the 'Dome slaps them on the back twice before they make it to Stacker.

He tells them well done, even shakes Yancy's hand, and commands that they restart the clock. Yancy is the only one that notices the interaction between Stacker and his adoptive daughter (the one that rebuilt Gipsy for them, that he has a _huge_ crush on and hasn't gotten around to properly thanking yet) and seems to be the only one that notices Raleigh and Chuck meeting eyes across the room.

"Go on," he prompts, and Raleigh shakes his head before turning back to him with a beaming smile.

"What?" he asks, wide eyed. Before Yancy can repeat himself, Raleigh's smile gets impossibly wider. "Did you hear they've got icecream in the mess to celebrate? How awesome is that!"

He's gone before Yancy can really blink, and, as usual, he just shakes his head and follows.

He'll get there eventually.

* * *

 

With Herc's broken arm and too many teams for the number of jaegers, it's a mess getting everyone sorted in time for Operation Pitfall.

Sasha and Aleksis volunteer to pilot Striker, and the Wei's say that they'll pilot if another arm and rig are added, but Chuck throws a fit and says he'll be damned if someone else takes his jaeger out on his drop or "buggers the damn thing up with an extra limb", so they're essentially left with no options.

Mako offers to pilot with one of the Becket brothers - she's been doing simulations (51 drops, 51 kills, you can colour Yancy impressed) and knows she is compatible with them both - but both decline. Neither wants to pilot with anyone else, considering their history, and the fact that "anyone else," in this case, is Chuck, makes the decision a lot easier.

Chuck refuses to pilot with a rookie, so it leaves only one other option.

Stacker.

Everyone is both surprised and not when he comes out in his drive suit, the day of Operation Pitfall. He gives a good speech, wishes everyone luck, and then disappears with Mako for a while, while the rest of them get ready.

Raleigh stands in the middle of the 'Dome, looking at everything and nothing, and he jumps when Yancy comes up at his side.

"Rals," Yancy says quietly, catching the way Raleigh's eyes keep flicking to Chuck. "You should say something."

Raleigh turns, and for the first time since they were kids, his expression is open and afraid.

"We might not make it back," Raleigh argues. "And," he says suddenly, looking at something behind Yancy. "You haven't said anything, either."

Yancy tries not to turn around, but fails when he hears Mako's quiet laugh, and turns to see her talking with the Wei triplets. When he turns back around, Raleigh is giving him a pointed look.

"That's exactly why we should say something," Yancy says eventually. "Both of us."

Raleigh nods, turning his gaze back to Chuck, who is already looking in their direction.

"No time like the present," Yancy says, when neither of them look away.

Raleigh takes a deep breath, and then nods.

"Okay," he says, then looks at Yancy. "But you, too."

Yancy resists the urge to turn back and look at Mako, and nods.

"Alright!" he laughs, when Raleigh doesn't look impressed.

"I'll see you back in Gipsy," Raleigh says, and starts heading towards Chuck.

"Yeah," Yancy agrees. Then, before Raleigh can get too far away, he yells, "hey, kid!"

Raleigh turns back, patient. "Yeah?"

"Good luck."

Raleigh smiles, all teeth, and walks away.

* * *

 

Yancy decides it's in his best interests to tell Mako how he feels, since Raleigh will kill him twice over if he doesn't, and considering they're about to Drift their way into a suicide mission, he'd rather just get it over with.

"Hey, Mako!" he calls out, once he's seen Raleigh off.

Mako turns, surprised, from where she's talking with the Wei triplets. The three of them laugh amongst themselves when Mako starts to walk towards him, and Yancy tries not to think too much about it.

"Yes, Yancy?" Mako asks, coming to a stop in front of him.

_God_ , but she's tiny.

"I, uh, just wanted to say - well, ask, really, if I -" what the hell is going on with Yancy's _mouth_? It's like his tongue is made of cotton. Nothing is coming out right. "If we, you and I, might- uh - coffee? If you want?"

Does that count as telling her how he feels? He hopes so. Jesus. Raleigh is gonna mock him so hard for this.

"Yancy," Mako says gently, smiling in a way that melts his heart. "I'd love to."

Yancy sighs out a quick "thank god" which makes Mako laugh, and he feels infinitely better hearing it.

"I have been waiting for you to ask me," she confesses, looking up at him from under her lashes, and Yancy's heart jumps.

"I'm sorry," Yancy says, and he means it.

"It is alright," she says, and smiles again. "Coffee will make up for it."

Yancy smiles. "I hope so."

Mako's smile drops, suddenly, just slightly, and she reaches out to put a hand on his arm. He can't feel it through the drive suit, but he can imagine.

"Just make sure you make it back," she says.

"I will," Yancy promises, as a sharp sound rings out across the 'Dome. "I will."

* * *

 

Raleigh has a stupid smile on his face when he makes it to Gipsy's conn pod, so he knows he's not the only one that might have a chance at a happy ending after their mission.

"Do I want to ask?" he wonders aloud, and Raleigh shrugs.

"You'll see it in a minute, anyway," Raleigh reminds him.

Yancy groans.

"At least, if we nail this, I won't ever have to see what happens after," he says.

Raleigh shrugs again. "I don't know," he says, at the same time the crew arrives to do the final part of hooking them into position. "We might make a video or two."

" _Jesus_ _Christ_ , Rals," Yancy groans.

Raleigh's laugh echoes in his head all the way into the Drift.

* * *

 

The Drift, as always, is awash in blue light, a dreamstate, a world they've lived in before and live in again. Their childhood flashes past - he's watching himself run, he's running, his feet are Raleigh's and Raleigh's feet are his - and it keeps going, pulse after pulse of a heart that hasn't stopped beating.

"You should say something," he tells himself.

Okay, he decides.

"Hey, Hansen!" he calls - no, not him, _Raleigh_. Raleigh from mere minutes ago, Raleigh down in the 'Dome.

"What do you want, Becket?" Chuck sounds annoyed, but his eyes are open and focused, studying Raleigh in the same way he always does.

Herc is looking at him, a dangerous expression in his eyes, but it fades as quickly as it came. He looks at Chuck, then at Raleigh, and understanding dawns.

"Can we talk?" Raleigh asks, casting a nervous glance at Herc.

Chuck looks at Herc, too, who nods.

"I'll see you before you drop, son," he says. Raleigh knows it's a promise.

Raleigh leads Chuck away a bit, into the corner of the bay where Crimson Typhoon used to stand, and Yancy can feel the way he tries to ignore the noise echoing around them.

"What do you want, Becket?" Chuck repeats, and he would seem impatient if not for the curious light in his eyes.

Raleigh says nothing, which - "come on, kid, you looked happy, surely something happened" "just watch" - and then there's movement.

He says nothing, not a word, just reaches forward and pulls Chuck to him, sealing their lips together in a rough, rushed kiss that Yancy immediately feels that he shouldn't be a part of, for more reasons than just the obvious.

Raleigh puts everything he is into everything he does, from piloting to building to working out, and Yancy isn't all that surprised to see he kisses that way, too.

Yancy curls one of his hands into soft, ginger hair, his fingers - _Raleigh's_ fingers - scraping against the edges of Chuck's drive suit, the helmet in Chuck's hands making an odd sound as it bumps against his suit.

Raleigh kisses Chuck like it's the last time he'll ever be able to - and who knows, maybe it is - and Yancy feels it so strongly within himself that he forgets for a moment that the feeling isn't even his.

After what feels like an eternity, Yancy feels but at the same time sees Chuck react. His fingers clench around his helmet and he goes completely still for a single second, and then he simply _explodes_ into motion. The helmet drops to the ground, a loud sound that rings out across the jaeger bay, the one that Yancy had heard earlier, and Chuck's hands are all over Raleigh. One hand curls over his face, his gloved fingertips slipping into the edge of Raleigh's hair, and the other wraps around Raleigh's waist to pull him closer. Their drive suits clash together roughly, making an uncomfortable sound, but neither seems to care, they just push closer and closer into each other as if there's nowhere else they want to be.

Eventually, Yancy feels Raleigh's lungs struggling for air, and they pull apart, both of them breathing heavily, not daring to separate more than a few inches. Chuck curls his fingers over the lip at the front of Raleigh's drive suit, pulling it forward until their foreheads rest together.

They breathe steadily in each other's space for a moment and then Raleigh lets his eyes slip closed.

"I-" he starts, but Chuck cuts him off.

"I know you said you wanted to talk," he says. "But... don't."

"Okay," Raleigh replies, laughing soundlessly.

They breathe for a few moments longer, Raleigh's head still reeling from the fact that he hasn't been punched.

Somewhere across the jaeger bay, someone drops something, and Raleigh and Chuck both jolt slightly, pulled from their own thoughts.

Raleigh moves to pull away, but Chuck's fingers tighten around his drive suit.

"Raleigh," he whispers, and Yancy feels Raleigh's chest tighten at the sound of his full name on Chuck's lips.

Chuck leans away, just enough that he can look Raleigh in the eyes, and his expression turns serious.

"Make sure you come back from this one, alright?"

Raleigh nods, bumping his chin against Chuck's knuckles.

"You, too," he says.

"Course, Ray," Chuck laughs. "We still got plenty more _talking_ to do."

He kisses Raleigh, then, and Yancy's vision fades back to blue.

* * *

 

Back in the conn pod, Raleigh's cheeks are tinged a gentle pink and Yancy is staring at him with a fond smile on his face.

"I'm proud of you, Rals," he says, after a minute.

Raleigh smiles, laughing, and says, "I'm - uh- you know, uh - proud of you, too."

Yancy groans, forgetting the flashes of that mess that had punctuated Raleigh's moment with Chuck, and wishes, not for the first time, that he could punch Raleigh in the conn pod.

* * *

 

Operation Pitfall is a mess.

They plan for two kaiju and there turns out to be three, they need a kaiju to get through the breach, Gipsy gets beat to hell and Striker doesn't fair much better, and the sheer gravity of the pain that shoots through the Drift when Striker detonates would have Yancy on his knees, if he weren't already.

"It's okay," Yancy tries to tell him. "It's _okay_. The pods were reconfigured for the nuke. They'll be okay."

Raleigh won't have it, his head a mess, as if he's already mourning.

It's Raleigh that pulls them to the breach. Yancy is losing oxygen, but he won't let Raleigh change their tubes, and they're both short of breath by the time they fall into the Anteverse.

They manage a manual detonation, all the while staring their enemy in the face.

"Rot in hell," Raleigh tells them, and they fold up into their escape pods.

* * *

 

The two of them spend weeks in Medical, doing rigorous tests on the effects of the Anteverse and recovering from the oxygen deprivation. They have no contact with anyone except for nurses and scientists in hazmat suits, who refuse to give them any details on the outcome of the mission.

It's been three weeks and four days since Operation Pitfall when Herc is allowed past their unofficial quarantine, and all he does is burst into their room to say one thing:

"He's alive."

* * *

 

Raleigh, who was irritating before, becomes downright _impossible_ after hearing that Chuck is alive.

He refuses treatment, trying instead to bribe anyone that comes to visit to sneak him out to see Chuck. No one caves.

It's another week before Raleigh and Yancy are discharged from Medical, and even then, they're under strict orders to report any noticeable changes to any part of their lives, in case there are consequences from the Anteverse.

Chuck is only allowed visitors after six weeks in and out of surgery and radiation treatment, and even then, all visitors are forced into monkey suits to prevent contamination. Even with the suit on, no one is allowed to touch him, and when Yancy manages to sneak in for a quick visit without Raleigh (who no one has told about visitation, at risk of causing Chuck more damage) Chuck looks starved of it.

"Becket," he greets, and his throat is rough from lack of use.

"Hansen."

Yancy doesn't say anything else, and Chuck waits patiently for about ten seconds before his expression turns sour.

"Your brother decide he's too good for me now, or something, then? Too much of a hero to bother with a wannabe?"

Yancy can't think of anything to do but blink, he's too confused by the sudden outburst.

"I've been having visitors for a week now, and not a sign of 'im. If he'd wanted a root 'n' boot, he shoulda come t'me a helluva lot sooner'n he did."

Yancy takes a minute to translate, because Chuck's accent gets thicker when he's angry, and immediately shakes his head when he figures out what Chuck is saying.

"We haven't told him that he can visit," Yancy confesses. He isn't surprised when Chuck's scowl deepens.

"And why the hell not?"

"You think Rals would obey the 'no touching' rule, after thinking you were dead for a month? It's for your own safety."

"A _month_?" Chuck blanches, apparently only picking up one piece of information from that speech. "They rescued me the same day as you! Why the hell have people been telling him I'm dead?"

"We were quarantined. We weren't told."

" _Fuck_ ," Chuck breathes, staring down at his legs. "Dad told me everyone made it before he even knew I had, really." He looks up at Yancy, eyes wide. "He really thought I was dead this whole time?"

Yancy nods, not wanting to think about how miserable Raleigh had been until he'd heard the news.

"He's been a different person. But once he sees you," Yancy says, a sly smile on his face. "I'm sure he'll bounce right back."

Chuck rolls his eyes, but nods in thanks.

"Just get better, alright, kid?" Yancy says, as he stands to leave.

"Yeah, yeah, old man. Whatever you say."

Yancy is still smiling when he returns to his room.

* * *

 

Raleigh isn't allowed to see Chuck until Chuck is out of the danger zone with his skin grafts and radiation poisoning, so he waits (im)patiently for another month, getting updates through Yancy in the meantime.

The minute the doc says it's okay, Raleigh is inside, at Chuck's side, both hands wrapped around one of Chuck's. Yancy joins them, if only because the doctor wanted someone around to make sure they didn't engage in any... strenuous activities.

"Finally come to see me, then," Chuck chastises immediately, but there's relief in his voice.

"Got sick of everyone else," Raleigh counters. "You were the last person left to annoy."

"Well, fuck off, then," Chuck says.

They stare at each other for a minute, and then they're laughing, fingers folding tighter around each other.

They don't let go for a long time.

* * *

 

Eventually, Yancy takes Mako out for that coffee.

He's awkward and cotton-mouthed the whole time, but Mako doesn't seem to mind.

She holds his hand, and he holds hers, and when Raleigh and Chuck come around hunting for trouble a few hours later, she's cuffs Chuck over the ear at the same time that Yancy hits Raleigh.

It might be a little early to tell, but Yancy thinks he might be in love. 

**Author's Note:**

> SORRY I DIDNT MENTION STACKER OR MORE OF MAKO SORRY
> 
> also sorry this is trash lmao
> 
> HOPE U ENJOYED IT bye


End file.
